In his plenary presentation, David Hawking, Chief Scientist at Funnelback, discussed the importance of search for HE websites and how to improve the search experience for visitors.
Hawking began his presentation by describing some of the ways a poor search interface can cause frustration, loss of productivity and event loss of revenue for businesses and institutions.
To illustrate how this can be avoided, he demonstrated some of the tools Funnelback have created to improve the search experience, including query completion, structured completions and regional adaptation…
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Hawking: Demonstrating the importance of query completion and how structured completions can help guide visitors #iwmw11 #p4
Hawking introduced us to the term “searchmaster” and advocated that any institutions that is serious about maximising the value of its web presence and improving user experience should have someone specifically responsible for their search interface.
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Hawking: Every organisation has a webmaster. Do you have a search master? #iwmw11 #p4
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